Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1887-09-17

On tre rushed tol0a,d the pillar Of fire.
Keep the boat to the right, Quatermnin--
70 the right" shouted Sir Henry, and min
ute afterward saw him fall forward senso-
less Alphonse had already gone. Good was
The next to Co. There they lay as though
lead; only Umslopogaas and kept our
senses lyc were within fifty yards Of it
low, and saw tho Zulu's head fall forward
N bis hands Heiiad gone, too and ! was
llonc. could not breathe; tho fierce heat
dried me up. For yards and yards round tho
great rose Of fire tle rock roof was red hot.
The wood Of the boat was almost burning. /
saw the feathers on one of the dead swans be-
gin to twist and shrivel up; but would net
givein. I knew that IL did we should pass
within three or four yards of the gas Jet and
perish miserably l set the paddle SO as to
turn the canoe as far from it as possible, and
held on grimly. .ih
My eyes seemed to be bursting from my
head, and through tho closed lids could SEQ
the fierce light. We were nearly opposite
now; it roared like all the fires Of hell, and
the water boiled furiously around il. Five
seconds more. We wee past; I hearl the
roar behind me.
Then |, too, foil senseless. The next thing
that remembe- was feeling breath of Gr
upon my face. lily eyes opened wi h great
difficulty. looked up. Far, far above mo
thcre was light, though around me was deep
gloom. Then l remembered, and looked.
The canoe still floatcd down ther river, and in
the bottom of it lay tho naked forms OF my
companions. "Wcro they deadp wondered.
"Was loft alone in this awful placer I
l., ,,af NJ l j
burning thirst Iput my hand over the edge
of the boat into the water end drew it up
again with cry. No wonder; nearly all the
skin was burnt OF tho back Off, The water,
however, was cold, or nearly SO, and drank
pints and splashed myself az over My body
seemed to suck up the 1uid as ono may SEQ a
brick wall suck up rain after a drought; but
whe o was burned tho touch of it caused in
tense pain. Then / bethought myself Of the
others, and dragging myself towar.s them
with difficulty, Tsp inkled them with water,
and to my joy they began to recover-Um-
slopogaas first, then the others Next they
drank. absorbing water like SO many sponges.
Then, feeling ehily--a queer contrast to our
recent sensations-wc began as best we could
to get into our clothes. AS VIC did so Good
pointed TO the rort sid !, Of the canoe; it was
all blstered with heat, and In places actually
charred. Had it been built like our civilized
boats, Good said that the planlSs would have
certainly warped and let in enough water to
sink us; but fortunately it was dug cut OF
the soft, willowy wool of single great tree,
and lad sides nearly three inches and bot
tom tour inches thick. What that awful
flanrs was we never discovered; but suppose
that therc was at this spot crack or hole in
the bed of the river through viii b a vast
volume Of gas forced its way from its vol
can C home i'll the bowels of the earth to wards
the up err air How it first became ignited it
is of course, impossible to say-probably, I
should think, from some spontaneous explo-
sion Of mephitic gases.
As soon as we lad got some things on and
shaken ourselves together q little we set to
work to make out where we were now. /
have said that there was light above, and OH
examination we found that it came from the
sky. Our river that was, Sir Henry said,
literal realization Of the wild vision of the
poet, was no longer underground but was
running on its darksome way, not now
through ''caverns measureless TO man,n but
between two flightful cliffs which cannot
have been less thnn 1000 feet high So high
were they, indeed, that though the sky was
above Us, where we were was dense gloom
not darkness, indeed, but the gloom of o
room closely suffered in the daytime. Up
on either side rose the great straight cliffs.
grim and forbidding, till the eye grew dizzy
with trying to measure their sheer height.
The little space Of sky that marked where
they ended lay like thread OF blue UPON
their soaring blackhsss, which was unrelieyod
by any tree or creeper Here and there.
however, grew ghostly patches Of long gray
lichen, hanging motionless to the rock, as tho
white beard to the chin Of Lead man. Il
sI.. a.l. AZ